


They Look So Happy (I Feel So Cold)

by deliciously_devient



Series: The Cold Is Familiar (But Your Warmth is what I Crave) [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers
Genre: M/M, Polyamory, Soul marks AU, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 16:37:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2699846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliciously_devient/pseuds/deliciously_devient
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone is born with a soulmark; sometimes two, but never anymore. Tony Stark has always known he's an abomination, but that's okay. Because as long as they are happy with each other, they don't need him at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Look So Happy (I Feel So Cold)

**Author's Note:**

> This is...gonna be a little angsty. Or a lot, I'm not sure yet. But there will be polyamory and sex in future parts, so yeah. Please leave feedback, ideas, ect.

Anthony Edward Stark had been called many names by many people, the majority of them unflattering and often derogatory, but he shrugged them off with his easy smile and an offhand nonchalance. He was called a playboy, a whore, a despicable man, a killer, a poor role model for the youth, and he shrugged it all off with a laugh, even when the reporters made disparaging comments about his soul mate and how unlucky they were, but at least they'd get his money, right?

There was one name, however, that only one person had ever called him, and it was only that person who could know it for the truth.

_Abomination._

It was a word that had fallen out of his father's mouth often enough that he believed it, accepted it as part of who he was, and moved on. On his lonelier nights, he would strip bare and wash every trace of make up from his body, and look at the five, marks that decorated his body.

Five was what made him an abomination, Tony knew; most people were born with one soulmark, for one soulmate, one person to share their life with. Triads were rare, but still accepted as something relatively normal, especially in the twenty first century. But five? He was a freak, greedy and undeserving of a single soulmate, let alone five. But alone, in the privacy of his own room, he would allow himself to look, and wonder.

On his left arm, from shoulder to wrist, blue, jagged lines of lightening criss-crossed along the flesh, tapering off to meet at a single point at the top of his wrist in the direct middle. At night, without anything covering it, the lines would glow faintly, moreso if there was a storm raging in the area. Across his chest, from the middle line of his pecs to the side, a pair of white, dulled wings across his chest. Some days, the mark seemed bitingly cold, seeping his warmth from him. On those days, he would feel incredibly sad, almost melancholy, and would rub the mark through his shirt often. After Afghanistan, the wings seemed to branch out from his arc reactor, like a guardian almost. On his lower stomach, just under his belly button, was a sharp edged hour glass, in a brilliant red. Some days it would itch terribly, and he would scratch at it until he bled. On his left thigh were two crossed arrows, right on the middle, about two inches long in a perfect cross. And lastly, there was a dark feather on his right foot, on a background of deep green. The green had only shown up a few years past, and he imagined it was because that particular soulmate had gone through something incredibly life changing.

He'd learned to cover each mark with care, first with make up, and then later with a special carbon paint that lasted for months and would fade into his skin without adverse affects, instead of rubbing off like make up did. It was convenient, and he released the product to the public after a few years of using it on himself. It made covering up soulmarks and tattoos much easier for everyone, and if he saved some people from unwanted soulmates well, all the better.

The paint is what really saved him, in Afghanistan; they would have killed him outright, no matter his station and skill, if they had seen him with more than one mark. Luckily, he'd chosen to have the wings unpainted, as they always gave him comfort, and painting it over always made the cold days more frequent. The accepted that as his only mark, and didn't care to test him with the resolvent of the carbon paint to find one he might have covered.

After he escaped, he never covered the wings again, and it soon got out that he was finally showing off his soulmark, and streams of imposters came towards him. Pepper filtered most of them, and the ones with the incredibly good fakes always got stopped by the “Does it ever get cold?” question. Tony wasn't sure why, but he knew that when he finally did meet his soulmate (the one with the wings, at least) they would know exactly what he meant by that, and none of the fakes had managed to answer the way Tony knew the real one would.

Then the pallidium poisoning came, and Vanko and Hammer, and Tony felt so, so spread thin, and one morning, on one of the cold days, he stopped short and fell to his knees when an acute, incredible sense of loss came over him, bringing tears to his eyes. It seemed to originate from his wings, and he swallowed back a sense of panic, and breathed slowly. As he knelt there, in the middle of his workshop with DUM-E making distressed beeping noises near him, he felt a flicker of something in his mind, a curiosity, and a hope. The panic built again, as he realized what this meant ( _close, he's so close, I could run to him)_ and he slammed his mind down against the other presence, locking himself tightly behind self constructed walls.

Mental connections between soulmates were rare, and usually indicated high intelligence on both parties, and Tony was so, so not ready for this. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he didn't deserve a single soulmate, was too fucked up to give this one ( _this one,who was always cold, and so, so alone, needed him so much_ ) what he needed, what he deserved. He was despicable, disgusting, and he knew it. He wouldn't force himself on any of them. But, he thought, he would make sure they were each taken care of.

He met this new determination with a nod to himself, and put his markings up on one of the databases meant for tracking down soulmates; he put in special parameters (since he ran the damn thing) to go into government files and find marks that had been struck for special forces, and let the system run.

Later, when he looked himself in the mirror before his shower, he noticed the tips of the feathers on his wings had become streaked with gray and black, and the white shone brighter than it ever had before. He touched the mark gently, and opened his mind experimentally.

He was immediately bombarded with thoughts, feelings, and above all, the sharp bite of betrayal. He winced, and sent his apologies, letting the man feel the full brunt of his sorrow and regret. He only got questions in return.

_Why won't you come to me?_ He asked, and there was desperation in him, raw and consuming, along with incredible, horrible loss.

_I'm not what you need,_ Tony murmured back, and oh, how he wanted. He wanted so much, but he wouldn't, couldn't subject another soul to him. It was bad enough Pepper and Rhodey had to deal with him.  _I could never deserve you._

He closed his mind after that, not wanting to feel the betrayal (or worse, the agreement) from his soulmate, and he swallowed his feelings back, and threw himself into the shower, and then into his lab. When he emerged, he felt as though he had lost a little bit of himself, but he had completed fifteen projects, and was able to collapse onto his bed and sleep for three whole uninterrupted hours.

When he awoke, Jarvis had four matches for him, and he drank three cups of coffee while he perused the files on his tablet.

Natasha Romonav, aka the Black Widow was the match for his hourglass; most of her file was redacted, but one didn't get as far as Tony Stark without knowing something about spy agencies. Former Soviet spy, she was taken in by SHIELD and had been working for them for the past ten years. It was said she had found her soulmate in one Clinton Francis Barton, also an agent of SHIELD, and who had coincidentally brought her into the organization. He looked at their matching arrow marks, faint surprise etched into his eyebrows. Of course, they had never found the person who seemed to make their duo a triad, and hadn't really looked. They both sported the red hourglass Tony did, and he swallowed hard as he looked at the pictures, feeling something ache deep in his gut.

Robert Bruce Banner, whom Tony had heard about some years ago before he'd been swooped up by the military, and then subsequently turning into the Hulk, came as somewhat as a surprise. He also had another mark, the same arcing lightening that Tony had, and all records indicating he had hidden the one on his foot. The green suddenly made sense, and Tony made a point to track down Bruce's whereabouts and send him medical equipment and food.

Steven Grant Rogers, also known as Captain fucking America, seemed to be the other match for his wings. A little more digging revealed that his body had been found encased in ice (the cold made sense now) and he had been revived just yesterday. He definitely didn't deserve that man as a soulmate, he thought darkly; God must have fucked up somewhere.

The lightening, however, was by far the most interesting. The only records of someone bearing it were in a redacted SHIELD database, about an alien who called himself Thor and apparently wielded lightening with a giant hammer. He shook his head slightly, looking through the files with dark, considering eyes, and began to work on a better field bow for Clint, mind turning over ways to make Natasha's armor more indestructable.

**

Tony almost laughed when Loki brought the Avengers together, and made a point of painting every mark over before he made his way to the Helicarrier. Here he was, among his soulmates, and he felt such a strong pull, saw them meeting each other and falling into place; it turned out that the five of them all shared a mark, and after Thor greeted Bruce, and Steve greeted Natasha and Phil (turned out Phil shared a mark with Natasha and Clint, one they all kept heavily under wraps) and he'd never felt more hollowed out than he did just then, standing among the people that were meant to be his, and finding they all hated him.

After the invasion, after Killian and his disease, after having his life ripped away, after having Pepper leave him (he'd known they would never last, known it wasn't a matter of if but of when, but it still hurt) he considered ending himself. Jarvis could run the Iron Man suit in extreme situations, Rhodey still had War Machine, and the other Avengers were more than competent enough to handle anything else.

It was certainly tempting; he could make it look like he'd died of natural causes, so that Pepper wouldn't feel guilt over his death. His personal fortune would go toward funding the Avengers if they ever needed to go private (which happened earlier than expected, when the whole Hydra debacle went down) and the company would be left in very capable hands.

He invited the Avengers to live in the remodeled Stark Tower, and told himself it wasn't out of any selfish reason to want them closer. He moved around them, watched them as they became closer to each other. He was in the room when Thor and Steve watched lightening appear on Steve's arm, glowing brightly as it was etched into his skin. He left when they began to kiss, wondering if Thor or Steve would kiss them like that if he showed him their marks.

He watched as Bucky, who had Steve's wings splashed across his chest and Clint and Natasha's hourglass carved under his belly button, got inducted into the tight group that was forming. He watched as Phil was revealed to be alive again, saw the tears, and his mental walls were torn at, but held strong because they  _couldn't know,_ it would ruin everything. They would leave, if they knew, and he would be alone again.

Their presence, while it hurt, was a sweet ache that filled him with...not happiness, exactly, but a contentment he'd never felt before. He made sure they always had food and entertainment and soft beds, and above all, a safe space for themselves. He made sure the Tower had more defenses than the Pentagon, made sure Bucky and Natasha had weapons stashed in every corner of their suites, made sure the vents around the Tower were always open for Clint, made sure Thor had a fully stocked kitchen (he loved to cook, and had a knack for it.) Made sure Bruce had a lab perfectly equipped for all his needs, and a Hulk proof room on every floor in case of any incidents. He made sure Steve's floor was always stocked with quality art supplies, and made sure the gym was always stocked with water, towels and snacks, as well as state of the art equipment, and a moving range.

They grew closer together, and after a year or so, they all shared each others marks, and none of them were very quiet about it. The media talked, as they always talked, but this time, Tony would laugh it off, but he wouldn't forget. How he was the odd one out. How he had lost his mark, since he was never seen with it anymore. How he was the only Avenger who could be replaced.

The others defended him when the slander was spoken in front of him, but Tony brushed it off, laughing his fake laugh, smiling when he really thought he should agree.

He was in the gym, taking his frustration out on a heavy bag, when Steve cornered him, saying his name gently. Tony looked at him, and tensed; the super soldier's face was soft in a way that bought immediate distrust, and he was on edge.

“I know you're my soulmate,” Steve said, bluntly, gently, his eyes so sickeningly soft. Tony drew back as though stung, and turned his back on his teammate, spine a long line of rigid wire.

“Haven't you heard?” Tony said, sharply, too sharply. “I lost my mark.”

“Bullshit,” Steve said, and there was that  _tone,_ the one that told him he wasn't going to drop this. “I know you cover it. I don't know why, but I know that you do, and I know that you've been my soulmate since two days after I was defrosted.”

Tony's movements were jerky as he unwrapped his hands, his eyes stinging and he  _felt_ Steve trying to push past his barriers, and he was so fucking tired. “Then you know that what I said was true. I don't deserve you.”

Steve grabbed his shoulder -so, so gently, only using a fraction of his incredible strength- and turned him around. Tony couldn't take it, couldn't take this conversation, not when he had so carefully fooled himself into thinking he was happy, so he threw open his mind and let all the hurt, pain, self loathing and fear flood from his mind to Steve.

“Don't,” he said, his voice tight and hoarse and filled with so much pain. “Please, don't. You don't need me, none of you, and I can't-I'm not-”

He couldn't finish, and while Steve was still stunned from his flood of emotion, he fled. He didn't go to his lab; he went to his suit, and he was gone, going through the air like a dart, farther and farther away until he couldn't feel Steve or Clint or Thor, and he didn't know if his outburst would mean they all knew or not.

He didn't notice there was a jet too close until it was too late; didn't hear Jarvis telling him he was being shot at until he couldn't roll away, and then everything was black, and he could only feel relief.

 


End file.
